Keep in mind that Lambdadelta is extremely lax in her magic. She won’t grant her magic unless the person she’s granting it to is capable of it themself. She refuses to do the work for them, instead opting to make their success certain. And, in the end, Takano was the one who couldn’t go through with becoming a God. She was the one who declined Hanyuu’s suicide offer.
The reason I dislike the notion that Higurashi was a game between Bernkastel and Lambdadelta is because it robs Higurashi of it’s own value as a standalone story. However, that’s only in regards to Rika being Bernkastel’s piece, not in regards to Takano being Lambdadelta’s. Both the Letters from Lambdadelta and Witches’ Tanabata TIPS reaffirm that Lambdadelta wasn’t actively controlling Takano, but rather certifying success so long as Takano accomplished it.
This is why I dislike the notion that Higurashi was a game at all. Out of curiosity, why does the notion of it being a game between Bernkastel and Lambdadelta bother you, but it being a game between Featherine and Lambdadelta doesn’t?
It has more to do with the characters themselves. I don’t think Takano being Lambdadelta’s piece is problematic because Takano isn’t aware of it, and still acts and behaves by her own will. However, Bernkastel doesn’t work like that, as we’ve seen with Erika. If Rika was being controlled throughout the story, I think it would invalidate her struggles, however, if the game was being played by Featherine, that wouldn’t be the case. Featherine’s memory unit was damaged, effectively changing her personality and making her completely unable to play the game properly. She wasn’t even the one who broke the cycle at all, either way, that was Rika. I think I’m okay with Higurashi being a game, so long as the characters’ agency is truly their own. (Although I think it’s important for Bernkastel to be born from Rika, instead of the other way around, so that her story mirrors Sayo, and so that Lambdadelta’s bully speech actually fits her history.)
Regardless, the Umineko manga explicitly shows the events of Higurashi as being the game that broke Bern, and even portrays Hanyuu as the game’s master. Maybe I’m resigned to the fact that, at least in Umineko’s context, Higurashi is a game. I just think it’s important that the characters’ actions are their own.
I completely agree. I guess I just don’t see how the “players” can be playing the game and yet the “pieces’” actions can still be their own. And I can accept that Higurashi is a game in Umineko’s context. I just don’t like when people try to retroactively apply all this stuff to Higurashi like it was always a part of it.
And one thing I don’t get about the Hanyuu=Featherine theory is…Hanyuu has been in Hinamizawa for a thousand years. So Featherine and Lambdadelta’s game spanned a thousand years, even though Lambda’s piece wouldn’t be born until near the tail end of that thousand years…? That seems…awfully strange.
Well, think of it more like Lambdadelta’s relationship with Beatrice. It’s not that she is actually the one playing the game, but rather that she is making sure that the game continues. She isn’t actively involved, and is definitely not calling the shots, but she’s still facilitating it. As for Hanyuu/Featherine as the Game Master, like I said, she was essentially a different person, incapable of actually making decisions herself. It’s technically a game, but it’s not at all being played as it’s supposed to.
I agree, it’s very hard to rationalize Featherine and Hanyuu as the same entity. I think you’re supposed to think of them as such in Umineko, but Higurashi’s already got a large, structured lore of its own. Perhaps it’s more like Sakutaro and his counterpart in Higanbana- Though they are technically both personifications of the same idea, they’re two separate beings? Although the only real things they have in common are their relationship to Rika/Bernkastel, and their godhood.
I don’t think Hanyuu existing for 1000 years necessarily entails that Featherine was using her as a piece for that entire time. It’s been established in Umineko that pieces aren’t born pieces, they only assume that role for the duration of the gameboard. It’s like, Featherine is observing the life of this character called Hanyuu. She sees her, and decides to select her to become her piece for this gameboard, manipulating her for the purposes of the game.
But, I’m a little confused. Wasn’t Lambdadelta the Game Master of Higurashi according to this theory? Or was this some kind of three-way battle royale?
I think Ryukishi changed his mind about how connected the two series were going to be. In the Question Arcs, the majority of references to Higurashi being a Gameboard are between Bernkastel and Lambdadelta, but in Chiru and Tsubasa, it’s portrayed more as though it was between Lambdadelta and Featherine, and Bernkastel was an unexpected product of their Game. I definitely prefer the later, as I think it doesn’t mess with Higurashi’s characterization as much, and actually benefits Bernkastel’s characterization in Umineko.
This was actually the first explicit answer given in the manga, before even the changes in Episode 7 and 8. The manga portrays Hanyuu as an incompetent and lazy Game Master who forced Rika to play the game for her, after she gave up on winning it herself.
However, this appears to support the notion @Isae mentioned- It makes it look like Featherine is Hanyuu and she made Rika her Piece. Although, I think it certainly makes more sense to believe that Hanyuu is Featherine’s Piece as opposed to Featherine herself. However, that mindset also creates problems. Like Hanyuu’s physical body, which is quite possibly the biggest wrench in the way of trying to understand if there is a connection between the two characters.
(By the way, I didn’t create the picture, nor did I give it the weirdly passive-aggressive name it has. I just found it on Google… I didn’t even realize what it was named until I uploaded it.)
I alway thought that it was both. It started as Featherine and Lambdadelta game but after the logic error or when Featherine got bored and no longer care about winning. Both Lambdadelta and Featherine just let the pieces do what ever they wanted. Something then happen in the game. I am thinking of the part when Keiichi get his memory from another world that Lambdadelta once more wanted to play the game and took over as GM. Which mean this became a game between Rika/Bernkastel and Lambdadelta even if Rika/Bernkastel didn’t know it at that moment but when Rika and Bernkastel became two different people and Bernkastel compete her rise to being a witch, which out being held back by the human Rika. Bernkastel get the story from the witches point of view. It would still be counted as Lambdadelta lost because it was show in Umineko that a witch can lose to a human because if it couldn’t be possible then there would of bet no reason for Battler the human to challenge the Witch Beatice.
[quote=“keeperofencarta, post:30,
topic:213”] If I had to summarize Lambdadelta’s role in the Higurashi: she represents an anomaly in Featherine’s game board, an inverse of Bernkastel and predating her, obviously. [/quote]
If Lambda is an anomaly in Featherine’s game board, then what kind of game board was it originally?
How did Takano “resurrect” Oyashiro? I know she claims she’s “become” Oyashiro at the end of Minagoroshi, but it’s not like she actually became a god. To me she just seemed to be more drunk on power than anything else.
How did Featherine’s horn get damaged in the first place if she’s so powerful?
So Rika only won against Lambda because Lambda “let” her? Inspiring stuff.
But simply saving Miyoko wouldn’t have created the world of Saikoroshi. There are many factors different from all the other worlds that Rika has been too that are unrelated to Frederica saving Miyoko. Such as:
-Hifumi Takano was actually able to set up a clinic back in the day. (And maybe cured Hinamizawa syndrome?)
-Rena never moved from Hinamizawa.
-Rika’s mom was the Reincarnation of Oyashiro rather than Rika.
-Keiichi never committed his crime with the model gun
…I think there was more, but I’m having trouble thinking of them off the top of my head. (It’s been a while since I read Saikoroshi.)
Wait…how was Hanyuu born from Lambdadelta’s interference? Also, Hanyuu did exist in the world of Saikoroshi. She says that she lived with Rika’s mom just as she’s now living with Rika. But apparently at some point before Rika showed up from her original world, Hanyuu “went to sleep” or whatever.
So Satoko was taken over by Lambda? Or she was (retroactively) Lambda the whole time? In that case, what about Satoko in Saikoroshi? Also, why didn’t Satoko have meta-awareness like Rika did?
I just thought that was foreshadowing. To make the readers be like, ‘What’s this all about?’ before they get to the scene where he gets trapped. And I can’t say I’m personally too fond of meta-world time travel theories. It seems to make things unnecessarily complicated. It’s like when people say Frederica was born after Saikoroshi and then went back in time to help Rika escape the maze of fate.
I don’t think that really had anything to do with the fact the Umineko was going on. Besides, I don’t think Kira is canon anyway. Or if it is, then we might as well consider the console arcs (which came out 2008~2010, I believe) as canon as well, and they contain dark arcs.
Also, I don’t know if you’ve read Kamikanshi-hen (the sequel to Outbreak) but (spoilers for Kamikanshi) Takano does turn out to be behind it.
[quote=“keeperofencarta, post:30,
topic:213”] If needed I think I have, somewhere, a formal proof that Lambadadelta and Bernkastel shared their logic error/hell using 6 or 7 quotes from Lambda.
[/quote]
I’d like to see those, if you don’t mind.
Also…I don’t really understand the parts of where you talk about how there has to be a “culprit.” I thought Rika’s terms of winning were just to surive, and if she could have done then even without ever having found out who caused her deaths, she still would have won.
Hmm, can you give me an example of when she is? It’s not that I don’t believe you, I just want to get a better idea of what you’re saying.
But I was under the impression that Rika could have escaped the maze of fate a lot earlier if she had only talked to people like she does in Minagoroshi and Matsuribayashi. So the only “miracle” needed was was a miracle to get Rika to take that action. (I’ve always thought that the miracle was Rika’s friends remembering other worlds.) So in one sense, a miracle was necessary, but in another sense, it wasn’t.
But the situation in Saikoroshi is completely different (and not because of Takano’s absence). For example, let’s say that Frederica didn’t save Miyoko’s parents. Miyoko still might have ended up with Hifumi, but she wouldn’t have had to inherit his legacy/dream, because he already received funding to study the Hinamizawa syndrome, hence the Takano Clinic in Hinamizawa.
Technically, you wouldn’t need a whole generation to to be skipped. In order for the Reincarnation to be born, there has to be eight generations of first born girls in the Furude family. You would just need for one of her ancestors to have an older brother.
But Lambda talks as though they did get free. The reason they run is because they don’t want to remember all the suffering they experienced when they were trapped… Or at least that’s the impression I got.
I’ll agree with the first three, but these two I don’t remember.
I read it in Japanese…I seem to remember hearing something about someone translating it, though.
I guess my main problem with this theory is that it seems to completely undermine the themes of Higurashi. I mean, it’d be one thing if Ryukishi always meant it to be this way, but all this is obviously what in Japanese they would call an ‘atozuke’ (literally, ‘after-attachment’); something attached to the story after the fact.
But Hinamizawa had a bloody history long before Takano was even born. Hanyuu just doesn’t like to hear about it.
I wouldn’t use quotes exclusive to the anime to make a point if I were you… But anyway, I’m afraid we’re just going to have to agree to disagree on this one.
Not every Higurashi story is a mystery that needs to be solved. I thought Saikoroshi was just supposed to show how Rika stopped thinking like a witch (and “gave birth” to Bernkastel in the process).
Yeah, the friendships are still there, but they don’t actually serve any purpose, which is why I say that the themes have been damaged. Also, the significance of anyone besides Hanyuu, Rika/Bern, and Takano/Satoko/Lambda has been rendered null and void.
Yeah, that was basically what I was trying to say.
I’ve heard of it. So are you trying to say that the themes aren’t important? Or are you saying that we should interpret it however we want?
By the way, thanks for being patient with me. Sometimes I worry that I’m coming across as too aggressive or hostile when I’m debating. I don’t entirely agree with your theory, but I admire that you were able to come up with something coherent from the clues about Higurashi in Umineko.
Or not? The “It was that, or” confuses me a bit here, considering your were pretty much sure of it in the earlier post. If anything it should be ‘and’ then. Or did you mean that he considered changing the way he told the story but chose to change the culprit instead?
Aside that, the heavy shift starting EP3 is pretty noticeable. From the meta-world having more and more to say, to the entire 1998 narrative. A lot of the larger subplots either grew or began in this episode. It is kind of hard to consider how Umineko would’ve turned out without Banquet. At the same time however: if 1998 wasn’t planned in some form, why does Ange even exist (since she is mentioned in EP1)?
In a way this shift is adressed in the story, with the first two episodes being credited to the “original” author, the rest being forgeries. Maybe the surrounding story evolved to a point that Ryukishi didn’t intend at first. Or maybe I should remove the ‘maybe’.
Aside that, thanks for reporting some of the stuff Ryu revealed there.
Btw. this discussion seems to move away a bit from the original purpose of the topic. Maybe a split?
Continuing from the kakera thread… (I also brought up some past points, if you don’t mind.)
-Lambda sounds like a pretty overpowered character. I mean, so is Featherine, but she works because she’s more of a neutral character. Lambda on the other hand is a major villain (Higurashi) and a major “good guy” (Umineko). Ryukishi’s pet?
It’s stated that the two can’t create a universe together no matter how hard they try.
Could you provide a direct quote?
-I propose that the reason there are extra Higurashi arcs is for the enjoyment of Higurashi fans and has no deeper significance. Especially since most of them are obviously not canon.
-If we can trust Lambda to tell the truth, then I guess Keiichi and Bernkastel must be the same person, because in EP6 Lambda says that Bern is the one who came up with the ‘demons eating popcorn’ thing, when it was actually Keiichi. This line even has those dots over the text to indicate that she’s saying something important.
This doesn’t match with what we see of Featherine in Umineko. Bern says that she learned what she did about tearing the guts out of things from Featherine, although she could never hope to reach Featherine’s level. Featherine also says that ‘monster’ is a word of praise to her.
What are you basing this bit on, exactly?
I don’t see why it would be infinite. Bern would be free as soon as Rika defeated Takano, and Lambda would be free as soon as she ‘served her time’ as Satoko, right?
Quotes?
If Featherine’s horn got damaged, then how did it get fixed again? Also, it’s strongly suggested in Higurashi that Ouka damaged Hanyuu’s horn with the sword Onigari-no-Ryuuou.
I’d like to actually hear him say this, if you have the files.
But Hanyuu wasn’t the only one who said this. Rika’s mom herself said she was the Reincarnation of Oyashiro-sama. Or are you going to say Hanyuu made her say that? Plus, that was literally the whole reason Rika had to kill her mom.
She says that she “didn’t count,” not that she “couldn’t count.” In fact, she says ‘Maybe I should have counted the years like Bern did,’ implying she was capable of it.
So what about Satoko in the world of Saikoroshi?
Er, when was this again?
Why would Miyoko’s father be any help? Wasn’t he, like, relatively poor? I can’t imagine he has much influence.
Well, if we’re talking about theories, then one person’s “doesn’t contradict” is another person’s “does contradict.”
Funny, that’s the exact problem I have with the theory you’re presenting. But I was talking about the real world. I don’t think the extra arcs “actually happened” in the world of the story. Or if they did, there’s an infinite amount of fragments, right? So why couldn’t these worlds have happened on their own without anyone “playing” them?
Are you saying that everything the pieces do in Higurashi (except Takano and Lambda’s other pieces) is just because Rika is making them do it? In that case, why didn’t she just have everyone help her in the first place? Or at least make it so that they don’t go crazy and kill each other?
Also, even in the Frederica parts of Higurashi, there’s no evidence that she’s directly controlling any other piece besides her own.
I got the feeling Ryukishi hadn’t really decided what he wanted to do with Bern and Lambda at this point. So he was just mentioning Higurashi as an easter egg. We do know that he changed Umineko quite a bit, after all.
Seemed like a PTSD-esque flashback to me.
Higurashi spoilers are allowed here. It says [Spoilers for both series] after all. And she seemed to talk to Erika about Logic Errors perfectly calmly.
I can’t be sure unless I hear exactly what he says, but just from this it sounds to me as though he’s offering Takano/Lambda as an example of someone who’s different. For all we know, he might mean Bern and Featherine, too.
But how could Satoko have counted if she didn’t have meta-awareness?
So Satoko was her own person before she was hijacked by Lambda.
I guess this is another area where our opinions differ fundamentally. I only consider a Higurashi work canon if it doesn’t contradict the eight core arcs (and maybe Saikoroshi) at all. Granted, there are contradictions between the eight core arcs themselves, but at least those arcs are all necessary in the greater story.
Also, I consider the different media as their own separate canons. For example, there’s the VN canon, the anime canon, the manga canon, the drama CD canon, etc.
Anyway, I don’t see much point in continuing this argument unless we can somehow come to an agreement on what’s canon.
So she’s basically a Mary Sue? What a surprise that Ryukishi has one!
I always considered the part where Lambda goes “I haven’t finished playing Higurashi!” As both an Easter egg like somebody’s said and Lambda playing along in the scene (since in EP6, she very clearly knows what Bern went through in the logic error, though as somebody has said, Ryukishi didn’t really utilize the Voyagers well until Chiru). After all, that part of the Tea Party was meant to be really silly and trying to play Lambda as dumber than she is for the “How long are you going to keep fooling around?” Mirage coordinator part to have that punch. After all, in the same scene, she keeps asking who Bern’s piece is even though it was obvious, and Lambda clearly knows that it’s Ange by the time the fourth game starts to where she puts the limit on Ange, and she addresses Ange by name when she tries to convince her to bring the game to a tie (though there is a chance she found out in the in between of the two games, but we can’t be sure since we’re never really shown them).
And the weirdness of it all is that to the people in Umineko, Higurashi is just a tale (Battler has stated that he’s read it before and all but outright stated that his favorite is Shion). So maybe we can view the grand library where all these stories are collected as the universe, and Higurashi is a Galaxy in that universe, where people can make up ideas about it and view it as a story, but to those who experienced it, it’s just their world they protect and love?
By the way, I was rereading some of the “Logic Error” parts in Umineko, but I couldn’t find any parts where it was referred to as a “sin.” It’s just called “the worst mistake the witch side can make.” Also, another definition given for a Logic Error is “a trick that has become impossible.” So what would the “trick” in Higurashi be?
